NewSounds Broadcasting vs Dy [G.R. No. 170270] Case Digest

 

NewSounds Broadcasting vs Dy

[G.R. No. 170270]

 

Facts:

            Petitioners applied for the renewal of the mayor’s permit on 2002.  Bagnos Maximo [the City Zoning Administrator-Designate] required the petitioner to submit "either an approved land conversion papers from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) showing that the property was converted from prime agricultural land to commercial land, or an approved resolution from the Sangguniang Bayan or Sangguniang Panglungsod authorizing the re-classification of the property from agricultural to commercial land."  Petitioners had never been required to submit such papers before, and from 1996 to 2001, the OMPDC had consistently certified that the property had been classified as commercial.

            Due to this refusal by Maximo to issue the zoning clearance, petitioners were unable to secure a mayor’s permit. Petitioners filed a petition for mandamus with the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Cauayan City to compel the issuance of the 2002 mayor’s permit.

            RTC denied the application of the petitioners; CA dismissed the case due to the availability of other speedy remedies with the trial court.

            Then DAR Region II Director Abrino L. Aydinan (Director Aydinan) granted the application [of the petitioner] and issued an Order that stated that "there remains no doubt on the part of this Office of the non-agricultural classification of subject land before the effectivity of Republic Act No. 6657 otherwise known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988."

            On 16 January 2003, petitioners filed their applications for renewal of mayor’s permit for the year 2003, attaching therein the DAR Order. Their application was approved. However, on 4 March 2003, respondent Felicisimo Meer, Acting City Administrator of Cauayan City, wrote to petitioners claiming that the DAR Order was spurious or void, as the Regional Center for Land Use Policy Planning and Implementation (RCLUPPI) supposedly reported that it did not have any record of the DAR Order.

                The controversy continued into 2004. In January of that year, petitioners filed their respective applications for their 2004 mayor’s permit, again with the DAR Order attached to the same. A zonal clearance was issued in favor of petitioners. Yet in a letter dated 13 January 2004, respondent Meer claimed that no record existed of DAR Adm. Case No. A-0200A-07B-002 with the Office of the Regional Director of the DAR or with the RCLUPPI. As a result, petitioners were informed that there was no basis for the issuance in their favor of the requisite zoning clearance needed for the issuance of the mayor’s permit.

            On 17 February 2004, respondents Meer and Racma Fernandez-Garcia, City Legal Officer of Cauayan City, arrived at the property and closed the radio stations. Petitioners proceeded to file a petition with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) seeking enforcement of the Omnibus Election Code, which prohibited the closure of radio stations during the then-pendency of the election period. On 23 March 2004, the COMELEC issued an order directing the parties to maintain the status prevailing before 17 February 2004, thus allowing the operation of the radio stations, and petitioners proceeded to operate the stations the following day.

           

 

Issue:

            Whether or not the acts of closing the radio stations or preventing their operations as an act of prior restraint against speech, expression or of the press.

 

Held:

            Yes.

 

Ratio:

            Prior restraint refers to official governmental restrictions on the press or other forms of expression in advance of actual publication or dissemination.  While any system of prior restraint comes to court bearing a heavy burden against its constitutionality, not all prior restraints on speech are invalid.

            That the acts imputed against respondents constitute a prior restraint on the freedom of expression of respondents who happen to be members of the press is clear enough. There is a long-standing tradition of special judicial solicitude for free speech, meaning that governmental action directed at expression must satisfy a greater burden of justification than governmental action directed at most other forms of behavior.

               

                At the same time, jurisprudence distinguishes between a content-neutral regulation, i.e., merely concerned with the incidents of the speech, or one that merely controls the time, place or manner, and under well-defined standards; and a content-based restraint or censorship, i.e., the restriction is based on the subject matter of the utterance or speech.  Content-based laws are generally treated as more suspect than content-neutral laws because of judicial concern with discrimination in the regulation of expression.  Content-neutral regulations of speech or of conduct that may amount to speech, are subject to lesser but still heightened scrutiny.